Electronic mail (email) is used by many people. Often an email includes a file attachment (attachment) so that the attachment can be distributed to the addressees/recipients of the email. Attachments can include any type of file such as data, computer applications, graphics, text documents, and other files. Typically, an attachment is distributed to one or more persons or computers. The attachment can be viewed or otherwise used by the recipients of the email. Email is a preferred method of distributing attachments that more than one person needs access to.
The recipients can also reply to or forward the email and can opt to include the attachment as part of the replying or forwarding function. Forwarding the email includes creating a new email that includes the contents of the original email to additional addressees/recipients. The forwarding party (i.e. the recipient of the original email) can also edit the email. Replying to the email includes forwarding the email to one or more of the other addresses and/or the sender of the email.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical email. The email includes an addressee's email address “jim.smith@kookoo.com” in the addressee field 104, a carbon copy (CC) addressee's email address “jim.jones@anycompany.com” in the carbon copy (CC) addressee's field 106, the author/sender's email address “jane.doe@kookoo.com”, in the author/sender's field 102. The addressees and CC addressees are often referred to generally as the addressees. The email can also include other types of addressees. The email also includes a message window 110 that shows a message 111 from the author to the addressees and a signature block 112 from the author. In addition, an attachment is attached to the email. A small icon 115 represents the attachment in the email. Typically the icon 115 also includes a file name 116. The attachment shown is a Microsoft Excel (MSExcel) spread sheet as can be seen from the file extension “.xls” of the file name 116.
One of the deficiencies of using email as a file distribution system is that attached files can be very large. A very large attachment can severely burden many email systems as the email server creates a different email to route to each addressee. For example if the email has ten addressees and an attachment size of that is 325 k, then the email server must manage at least 3250 k (325 k* 10) of data throughput. Then the email server must distribute this 3250 k of data through the various output channels available to the server and thereby consume a large quantity of bandwidth available to the email server.
FIG. 2 shows a process of receiving an email and forwarding the email on to additional addressees. First, the email is received in block 205. The email also includes an attachment. Second, in block 210, the email is forwarded to one or more addressees. The forwarded email can also be considered a “new” email. The forwarded email also includes the attachment.